Remarks in Phoenix - China Revisited: A New Era in Asia

REMARKS OF SENATOR MIKE MANSFIELD (D . , MONTANA)
AT THE SEMI-ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE
GLASS CONTAINER MANUFACTURERS INSTITUTE, INC .
THE ARIZONA BILTMORE, PHOENIX, ARIZONA
OCTOBER 26, 1972
ll :00 A. M. , P. S. T.
CHINA REVISITED: A NEW ERA IN ASIA
We are in the open- season in politics . The arrows of
allegation fly thick and fast . Political pot- shots come from all
directions . North, south, east and west, the land is strewn with
tattered public reputations .
I have no inclination to join in the personal carnage. When
it is over our national ills will still be with us. Their cure will
\ not be made any easier by the wounds of politics. In any event, this
~
is a bipartisan audience--at least, I hope there .~re a few Democrats
present . It would be appropriate in the circumstances, I think, to
eschew the political in my remarks . Let me proceed on the principle
that people who live in the glass houses of national politics should
not throw stones, especially at a convention of glass makers.
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 2 -
It is my intention, instead, to talk to you about a nation
where recycling is not an issue because waste has been recycl ed since
time immemorial . It is a nation where neither bottles nor anything
else of value is thrown away. It is a nation several thousand years
older than the United States and many times more densely populated,
yet whose rivers and streams run ' teeming with f i sh.
This year the international roads have all led to that country
and t o its capital of Peking . There is an ancient Chi nese proverb
wh i ch loosely translated says that "the journey of a thousand miles
begins with the first step . 11 In a shift of h i story,, t he first major
step towards China was taken for this nati on by President Nixon and
\ I applaud him for it . When a similar shift is also noted in the
President's approach to Soviet Russia, we begin to have some measure
of the magnitude of the transition which is underway in the inter-national
scene .
The President's visit to Peking set off a chain reaction .
Subsequent missions were undertaken by the bipartisan leaderships of
the Senate and the House . Additional visits of international
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 3 -
significance have been undertaken by other countries, most recently,
that of Prime Minister Tanaka of Japan.
To grasp what is taking place today, these visits must be seen
against the background of past policy toward China. At mid-century,
the American political scene was dominated by one theme: 11Who lost
China? 11 Stentorian voices asked the question from one end of this
nation to the other. Scapegoats were dragged out of government
agencies and academic life to be paraded before Congressional commit-tees
anu held up to public scorn. We sought an explanation for the
failure of a policy in this fashion because none oth~r seemed plausi-ble
at the time. Fresh from the great military triumphs of World
War II, we were not yet ready--as a nation--to face the fact that
three-quarters of a billion people could not be won or lost in the
mid-twentieth century by anybody except themselves. It was incon-ceivable
to us that anything except betrayal could be at fault in
the 11 loss of China. 11
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 4 -
So the idea that China was something which had been allowed
to slip through our fingers into the hands of Moscow became firmly
imbedded in the nation's Asian policies . So, too, did we come to
accept the illusion that China was recoverable by us, in due course,
by ostracizing or flailing the government in Peking as 11un- Chinese11
-
and 11unleashing 11 Generalissimo Chiang Kai- shek. These concepts were
expressed in a policy of building a military wall around China and
preparing, on Taiwan, forces of the National Government to retake the
mainland .
In time, this obsessive policy led us to send. tens of thousands
of Americans and Chinese, not to speak of Koreans to their deaths
unnecessari~y in the rash extension of the Korean war beyond the 38th
parallel . It led us to form a chai n of Asian treaties whose links
were Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and nations of Southeast Asia--all
weak and all dependent on the United States for survival . U. S. bases
were established, Willy nilly, in countries throughout the area . Tens
of thousands of U. S. forces were deployed to man the bases . Tens
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 5 -
of billions of dollars were spent for military activities and fore i gn
aid. Huge staffs of U. S. government administrators, military advisors,
construction workers and others were se~to administer the aid .
The so-called 11 containment policy11 for the Far East which had
been preci pitated by an express i on of indignant pub~ic aversion to a .
revolutionary China led us, step by step, into the terrible tragedy
of Indochina. Nowhere along the line--and I include the Congress
with the various presidential administrations and the permanent bur-eaucracy
of the government-- did we find the wisdom and strength to
break the inertia . We failed even to restrain this process until
more than half a million Americans were bogged down in Indochina and
\
our country ~as confronted with the greatest internal divisiveness
since the Civil War .
He were drawn into a vortex by what was seen as a 11 lost 11 China,
a reckless, beligerent communist monster, set loose by Moscow. The
irony was that at the very same time, the leaders in Peking were re-garding
themselves as trying only to assert control over traditional
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 6 -
territories and attempting to build a new and unified nation
capable of meeting the needs of the Chinese people. Our policy
of 11containing China11 whether expressed in Korea, Taiwan or Viet
Nam, in nuclear bases in Okinawa or in U-2 flights over Chinese
territory, was interpreted by Peking as a vicious extension of
Western imperialist efforts to dominate China. We were held up to
a new generation as the number one enemy. For the first time in
decades, Chinese children were encouraged to hate the government
of the once "beautiful country" as the name 11America11 translates
into Chinese.
That is in the past. The raw confrontation is now over.
Together with the Peking government, we have embarked on what is
likely to be a long slow journey of restoration. President Ni xon's
visit to Chi na early this year was a symbolic act of the highest
s igni ficance in this process. When the President and the Chinese
Premier touched glasses in toasts of mutual f riendship, the death
knell of the containment policy in Asia tolled across the Pacific.
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 7 -
As I have noted, the joint Senate leadership followed the
President to China last April and May. Let me give you, now, a
few first-hand impressions of the changes which have taken place
A)
-~
in the lives of over 8oo,oo~ D people--one fourth of the world's
population. I do so in order to provide some indication of the
kind of nation with which the world must reckon. What the joint
leadership concluded differs little from what other Americans have
-...
found in visits to the new China .
To digress for a moment, I might mention that I served as a ·
Marine in the old China. Ever since I have been partial to the
Marines. When I was in the Navy, I never rose above the rank of
Seaman 2nd Class. During my Army hitch, I remained a buck private .
But the Marines, recognizing certain exceptional qualities in my
soldiering, elevated me for the rest of my military career to the
rank of P. F. C.
I must add that my exposure to th& old China was not limited
to a KP's view of the warlord era when Chinese scavenged the garbage
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 8 -
cans of the mess halls for food. In 1944, I went again, as a young
Congressman on a mission for President Roosevelt, to a disease-ridden,
famine-stricken, wartorn free China, traveling the old
Burma Road and many parts of the West, specifically Yunnan and
Szechwan. Again, shortly after the Japanese surrender, I visited
Peking and Tientsin once more and Tsingtao on the Northeast coast.
The contrast between the old China and China today, is
extraordinary. To be sure, the Chinese People's Republic is more
closely controlled and highly organized than ever before. Intel-lectual
and artistic freedom are non-existent. Nor is there
representative government and free enterprise, as we know them.
However, if we have learned one truth from our experiences in Asia,
it should be that American values are not necessarily adaptable
wholesale in Asia.
What is of greatest relevance to the Chinese people at this
time is that the present system has led to the availability of
adequate food, shelter, clothing and simple consumer goods. It
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 9 -
has :ed to great adv3nces in public health care, bast e education,
transportat~on, electrification, and the ljke. It has developed
an economy which is capable of manufacturing, out Qf Chinese
resources, thousands of products, from a pin to nuclear devices
and space satelljtes and the machine tQols to produce them.
What is relevant, too, is that the superstructure of control
is manned, not by a conspicuous and highly privileged elite as
in the past but by men and women who work among the people, who
dress like them and live with them. Conformity there js, as there
has always been, for the great numbers of Chinese but it s not
produced by a visible whip. Indeed, I do not th2nk I saw more than
one or two f:re-arms anywhere in China during the enti re visit.
What is most striking is a universal sense of participation
in work. A bona fide national family is emerging, with a 'one for
all and all for one" concept of society. The present system, in
short, seems to have succeeded in undergirding the personal pride
of the Chinese in China. As Chou En-lai put it, ''The Chinese people
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 10 -
can stand up again. '1 As never before, China seems strong, dynamic,
unified and virtually classless.
As this vast uplift has gained in momentum, nat:ons have
beat a path to China's door. For us, the time was over-ripe for
the President's initiative. For several years, hostility between
the United States and China has been receding. Long before the
President's visit, this country has ceased to be an unmitigated
ogre in China's eyes. The focus of Peking's concern began to shift
elsewhere a decade ago, notably t~ the Soviet Uni~n and to Japan.
Only the intrusion of the ill-fated Vietnamese involvement concealed
the extent of the shift.
As for the Soviet Union, at first, the Chinese leaders felt
to that country
bound closely/by what seemed to be a common ideology. Moreover,
the relationship was cemented by the unifying force of a hostile
outside world. Over the years, however, ideoJogical concepts
diverged. A serious cleavage developed between the two nations and
long-standing border questions and other irritants came into view.
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- ll -
The Soviet aid-program is a prime example. At first welcomed, it
came to be seen in Ch na as something of a fraud which carried too
high a price tag for inferior goods and technologies. While the
program has long since been discontinued and the Russians paid in
full and sent home, the sense of being cheated still rRnkles among
the Ch1nese.
Most serious, one million Soviet and Mongolian armed forces
on China's border are no longer regarded as communist allies. On
the contrary, these forces now loom as a menace of major prooortions
on a par with, if not greater than U. S. military bases in Asia or
the prospect of a rearmed Japan.
As for China and Japan, the recent meeting of Premier Chou
and Prime Minister Tanaka sets the stage for further changes in the
special ties of the latter country with the United States. Since
World War II, the Japanese have looked primarily to this nation not
only for security but also for the great portlon of the foreign trade
which supports their economic well-being. On the other side of the
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 12 -
coin, Japan has followed very closely the U. S. lead in internat i onal
relations. Now, an immense economic dynamism has developed in Japan.
Japanese productive capacity ranks third in the world and Japanese
trade is flourishing on all continents. This economi c growth makes
possible greater independence in international policies; indeed, it
makes greater independence necessary.
The political settlement which has been achieved with China
foreshadows the end of the unequal and quasi-dependent relationship
with the United States. On the one hand this change is welcomed
.. both here and in Japan. On the other hand, anxieties over what
the future may hold ha~led to some mutual recrimination. It is
the responsibility of diplomacy and statecraft to hold in check
tendencies of this kind. On that score, T must say in all candor,
that there has been some slippage on the part of the Administration.
I can conceive of no greater tragedy for the Pac i fic region
than that the inevitable transition in the U. S. - Japanese rela-tionship
terminate in its disruption. To avoid such an outcome,
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
.. .
;
- 13 -
it would be helpful to recognize frankly that Japan's great
econo~ic achievements in recent years have been pinching at
sensi tive political and commercial nerves in this country. Pre-
1
occupied for too long with Viet Nam, we have awakened to discover
that our industry is no longer able to compete in many fields with
the Japanese. While we have been wasting our substance, skills,
manpower and industrial creativity in Indochina, the Japanese have
been putting insignificant outlays into military purposes. Their
economic energies have been concentrated, instead, on peaceful
production and trade. It is not surprising, in the circumstances,
that for the last six years, the Un ~ted States has had a bilateral
trade deficit wi th Japan, which reached an all-time high of
$3.2 billion last year.
Japan's reestablishment of relations with China, in my
judgment, is in the interests of all concerned. The door will now
open still more widely to a Sino-Japanese trade which is already
large and growing. In so doi ng, it will lessen the pressure of
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
----------~----~------------------~------------------~--~----~~---~-
- 14 -
Japanese competition in U. S. markets.
'
Furthermore, it may well •
stimulate the Soviet Union into a heightened economic interchange
with Japan, especially in connection with the Soviet Maritime
•
Provinces and Siberia.
These adjustments can go far to untangle the trade lines of
the Far Pacific which were distorted by ideological conflicts in
the aftermath of World War II. Moreover, they dovetail with the
clearing away of trade barriers between the United States and China
and the United States and the Soviet Union. Taken all together,
these shifts could lay a firm economic base for peaceful relation-ships
between Japan, China, the Soviet Union and the United States
in the Western Pacific. The question is can there also be found
i n a l l four countri es the poli t i cal wit and diplomatic wisdom to build
a quadripartite base of stability in that region?
Early steps will involve adjustments i n security relation-ships,
notably in the defense treaties between Japan and the United
States and the Soviet Union and China. These treaties were entered
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 15 -
into in a different time and situation. Insofar as the Japanese -
U. S. relationship is concerned, it is likely that the U. S. nuclear
safeguards for Japan will remain significant for some .time. Outside
l
this umbrella, however, it seems to me that U. S. bases on Japanese
territory, which have already declined in importance, will have
lost additional significance as a result of the Chou Tanaka and ·
the Chou - Nixon communiques.
Present developments among the larger countries of Asia
have set in motion repercussions elsewhere. After two decades of
unrestrained invective, for example, the two Koreas are talking
amicably. Thailand has accepted a Chinese invitation to take its
table tennis team to Peking. The ping-pong players will .be accom-panied
. by government emissaries carrying not only paddles and
ping-pong balls, but, in all probability, briefs on Sino-Thai
international issues. It will be only a matter of time, I should
think, before relations are normalized between China and Thailand,
Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 16 -
In short, from one end of the Western Pacific to the other,
outmoded policies are on the way out. What still remains intact,
however, are this nation's military and other arrangements around
the rim of the People's Republic of China. The next step for this
Administration or its successor, it would seem, will involve an
examination of these arrangements, indeed all the tools--the
treaties and other measures--by which antiquated doctrines are
still being pursued in Asia. The cutting edge of these tools will
have to be reset so that they may be applied in follow-through on
the President's initiative and with relevance to the contemporary
realities of the Far East.
It would be well to bear in mind in this connection that
the United States is, and will continue to be, a Pacific power.
We should cease now to act as an Asian power as we have been trying
to do for the past quarter of a century. The fact is that we have
no vital--I stress the word vital--interest on the mainland of Asia
except to extricate ourselves from the quicksands of Indochina.
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 17 -
To meet our vital Pacific interests--and, as distinct from those
in Asia, they are vital--does not require us to continue to maintain
hundreds of thousands of armed forces and over 100 major bases
throughout the Western Pacific at a cost of billions of dollars
annually. It does not compel us to give vast quantities of arms
and other wasteful aid to dubious governments. The deployment of
our military forces and our resources should be matched to contem-porary
needs and not to the myths of the past. It is time for
careful, in-depth studies of all of our non-nuclear security
commitments in Asia and it would be my hope that such studies will
be undertaken in the Senate and elsewhere during the .next ~ngress.
Over the hopeful developments in Asia, there still hangs
the cloud of Indochina. Our nation remains entrapped by its own
Southeast Asian policies. To be sure, fewer Americans than in the
past now die in Indochina each week and that is cause for gratitude.
That does not excuse us, however, from facing the fundamental issue.
What we must ask ourselves bluntly is why any American should die
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
18
..
in Indochina? Why is there, still, any American involvement in
a war which is now looked upon as a mistake by almost all Americans?
The continued involvement in Indochina works against the
long-range interests of this nation not only in Asia but throughout
the world and at home. It is debilitating our economy at the rate
of at least some $8 billion a year now, or about $40 out of the
pockets of every man, woman, and child in the nation. We are
building up public obligations which not only feed inflation but
which will carry well into the 21st Century. The involvement is
helping to destroy the lives of thousands of Indochinese every week
in a war which, ·less and less, draws distinctions between combatant
and non-combatant, "smart bombs" notwithstanding. Like a cancer,
the war eats away at the vi tality of our national life and the trust
of Americans in each other and in their government. It is feeding
on the nation's soul, stripping away the concern that has made
America, America--a decent concern for the life of all human beings
wherever they may be.
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 19 -
j
The longer we continue in Indochina the more we place
ourselves at a disadvantage in tackling the real problems facing
· us in the Pacific. The waters of that ocean touch the shores of
the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, and China. We are all
Pacific nations. Our fates are interwoven in a complex of common
and divergent interests. It is going to tax us to the fullest to
deal with that complex in a way which serves the well-being of
this nation. We can ill afford to approach the new situation in
the Western Pacific with one foot in the trap of Indochina.
We have made a start--a good start. We have begun, belatedly,
to face up to the present and to look to the future." We have a
long way to go but the first step is the longest and the most
di fficult. We can continue with assurance along this path on which
we have entered in Asia, recognizing that it is but a sector of the
path of brotherhood, mutual understanding and equality for all men
everywhere. In the end, the goal is the same--peace, peace for
ourselves and our children and our children's children.
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana

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Transcript

REMARKS OF SENATOR MIKE MANSFIELD (D . , MONTANA)
AT THE SEMI-ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE
GLASS CONTAINER MANUFACTURERS INSTITUTE, INC .
THE ARIZONA BILTMORE, PHOENIX, ARIZONA
OCTOBER 26, 1972
ll :00 A. M. , P. S. T.
CHINA REVISITED: A NEW ERA IN ASIA
We are in the open- season in politics . The arrows of
allegation fly thick and fast . Political pot- shots come from all
directions . North, south, east and west, the land is strewn with
tattered public reputations .
I have no inclination to join in the personal carnage. When
it is over our national ills will still be with us. Their cure will
\ not be made any easier by the wounds of politics. In any event, this
~
is a bipartisan audience--at least, I hope there .~re a few Democrats
present . It would be appropriate in the circumstances, I think, to
eschew the political in my remarks . Let me proceed on the principle
that people who live in the glass houses of national politics should
not throw stones, especially at a convention of glass makers.
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 2 -
It is my intention, instead, to talk to you about a nation
where recycling is not an issue because waste has been recycl ed since
time immemorial . It is a nation where neither bottles nor anything
else of value is thrown away. It is a nation several thousand years
older than the United States and many times more densely populated,
yet whose rivers and streams run ' teeming with f i sh.
This year the international roads have all led to that country
and t o its capital of Peking . There is an ancient Chi nese proverb
wh i ch loosely translated says that "the journey of a thousand miles
begins with the first step . 11 In a shift of h i story,, t he first major
step towards China was taken for this nati on by President Nixon and
\ I applaud him for it . When a similar shift is also noted in the
President's approach to Soviet Russia, we begin to have some measure
of the magnitude of the transition which is underway in the inter-national
scene .
The President's visit to Peking set off a chain reaction .
Subsequent missions were undertaken by the bipartisan leaderships of
the Senate and the House . Additional visits of international
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 3 -
significance have been undertaken by other countries, most recently,
that of Prime Minister Tanaka of Japan.
To grasp what is taking place today, these visits must be seen
against the background of past policy toward China. At mid-century,
the American political scene was dominated by one theme: 11Who lost
China? 11 Stentorian voices asked the question from one end of this
nation to the other. Scapegoats were dragged out of government
agencies and academic life to be paraded before Congressional commit-tees
anu held up to public scorn. We sought an explanation for the
failure of a policy in this fashion because none oth~r seemed plausi-ble
at the time. Fresh from the great military triumphs of World
War II, we were not yet ready--as a nation--to face the fact that
three-quarters of a billion people could not be won or lost in the
mid-twentieth century by anybody except themselves. It was incon-ceivable
to us that anything except betrayal could be at fault in
the 11 loss of China. 11
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 4 -
So the idea that China was something which had been allowed
to slip through our fingers into the hands of Moscow became firmly
imbedded in the nation's Asian policies . So, too, did we come to
accept the illusion that China was recoverable by us, in due course,
by ostracizing or flailing the government in Peking as 11un- Chinese11
-
and 11unleashing 11 Generalissimo Chiang Kai- shek. These concepts were
expressed in a policy of building a military wall around China and
preparing, on Taiwan, forces of the National Government to retake the
mainland .
In time, this obsessive policy led us to send. tens of thousands
of Americans and Chinese, not to speak of Koreans to their deaths
unnecessari~y in the rash extension of the Korean war beyond the 38th
parallel . It led us to form a chai n of Asian treaties whose links
were Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and nations of Southeast Asia--all
weak and all dependent on the United States for survival . U. S. bases
were established, Willy nilly, in countries throughout the area . Tens
of thousands of U. S. forces were deployed to man the bases . Tens
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 5 -
of billions of dollars were spent for military activities and fore i gn
aid. Huge staffs of U. S. government administrators, military advisors,
construction workers and others were se~to administer the aid .
The so-called 11 containment policy11 for the Far East which had
been preci pitated by an express i on of indignant pub~ic aversion to a .
revolutionary China led us, step by step, into the terrible tragedy
of Indochina. Nowhere along the line--and I include the Congress
with the various presidential administrations and the permanent bur-eaucracy
of the government-- did we find the wisdom and strength to
break the inertia . We failed even to restrain this process until
more than half a million Americans were bogged down in Indochina and
\
our country ~as confronted with the greatest internal divisiveness
since the Civil War .
He were drawn into a vortex by what was seen as a 11 lost 11 China,
a reckless, beligerent communist monster, set loose by Moscow. The
irony was that at the very same time, the leaders in Peking were re-garding
themselves as trying only to assert control over traditional
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 6 -
territories and attempting to build a new and unified nation
capable of meeting the needs of the Chinese people. Our policy
of 11containing China11 whether expressed in Korea, Taiwan or Viet
Nam, in nuclear bases in Okinawa or in U-2 flights over Chinese
territory, was interpreted by Peking as a vicious extension of
Western imperialist efforts to dominate China. We were held up to
a new generation as the number one enemy. For the first time in
decades, Chinese children were encouraged to hate the government
of the once "beautiful country" as the name 11America11 translates
into Chinese.
That is in the past. The raw confrontation is now over.
Together with the Peking government, we have embarked on what is
likely to be a long slow journey of restoration. President Ni xon's
visit to Chi na early this year was a symbolic act of the highest
s igni ficance in this process. When the President and the Chinese
Premier touched glasses in toasts of mutual f riendship, the death
knell of the containment policy in Asia tolled across the Pacific.
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 7 -
As I have noted, the joint Senate leadership followed the
President to China last April and May. Let me give you, now, a
few first-hand impressions of the changes which have taken place
A)
-~
in the lives of over 8oo,oo~ D people--one fourth of the world's
population. I do so in order to provide some indication of the
kind of nation with which the world must reckon. What the joint
leadership concluded differs little from what other Americans have
-...
found in visits to the new China .
To digress for a moment, I might mention that I served as a ·
Marine in the old China. Ever since I have been partial to the
Marines. When I was in the Navy, I never rose above the rank of
Seaman 2nd Class. During my Army hitch, I remained a buck private .
But the Marines, recognizing certain exceptional qualities in my
soldiering, elevated me for the rest of my military career to the
rank of P. F. C.
I must add that my exposure to th& old China was not limited
to a KP's view of the warlord era when Chinese scavenged the garbage
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana
- 8 -
cans of the mess halls for food. In 1944, I went again, as a young
Congressman on a mission for President Roosevelt, to a disease-ridden,
famine-stricken, wartorn free China, traveling the old
Burma Road and many parts of the West, specifically Yunnan and
Szechwan. Again, shortly after the Japanese surrender, I visited
Peking and Tientsin once more and Tsingtao on the Northeast coast.
The contrast between the old China and China today, is
extraordinary. To be sure, the Chinese People's Republic is more
closely controlled and highly organized than ever before. Intel-lectual
and artistic freedom are non-existent. Nor is there
representative government and free enterprise, as we know them.
However, if we have learned one truth from our experiences in Asia,
it should be that American values are not necessarily adaptable
wholesale in Asia.
What is of greatest relevance to the Chinese people at this
time is that the present system has led to the availability of
adequate food, shelter, clothing and simple consumer goods. It
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has :ed to great adv3nces in public health care, bast e education,
transportat~on, electrification, and the ljke. It has developed
an economy which is capable of manufacturing, out Qf Chinese
resources, thousands of products, from a pin to nuclear devices
and space satelljtes and the machine tQols to produce them.
What is relevant, too, is that the superstructure of control
is manned, not by a conspicuous and highly privileged elite as
in the past but by men and women who work among the people, who
dress like them and live with them. Conformity there js, as there
has always been, for the great numbers of Chinese but it s not
produced by a visible whip. Indeed, I do not th2nk I saw more than
one or two f:re-arms anywhere in China during the enti re visit.
What is most striking is a universal sense of participation
in work. A bona fide national family is emerging, with a 'one for
all and all for one" concept of society. The present system, in
short, seems to have succeeded in undergirding the personal pride
of the Chinese in China. As Chou En-lai put it, ''The Chinese people
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can stand up again. '1 As never before, China seems strong, dynamic,
unified and virtually classless.
As this vast uplift has gained in momentum, nat:ons have
beat a path to China's door. For us, the time was over-ripe for
the President's initiative. For several years, hostility between
the United States and China has been receding. Long before the
President's visit, this country has ceased to be an unmitigated
ogre in China's eyes. The focus of Peking's concern began to shift
elsewhere a decade ago, notably t~ the Soviet Uni~n and to Japan.
Only the intrusion of the ill-fated Vietnamese involvement concealed
the extent of the shift.
As for the Soviet Union, at first, the Chinese leaders felt
to that country
bound closely/by what seemed to be a common ideology. Moreover,
the relationship was cemented by the unifying force of a hostile
outside world. Over the years, however, ideoJogical concepts
diverged. A serious cleavage developed between the two nations and
long-standing border questions and other irritants came into view.
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The Soviet aid-program is a prime example. At first welcomed, it
came to be seen in Ch na as something of a fraud which carried too
high a price tag for inferior goods and technologies. While the
program has long since been discontinued and the Russians paid in
full and sent home, the sense of being cheated still rRnkles among
the Ch1nese.
Most serious, one million Soviet and Mongolian armed forces
on China's border are no longer regarded as communist allies. On
the contrary, these forces now loom as a menace of major prooortions
on a par with, if not greater than U. S. military bases in Asia or
the prospect of a rearmed Japan.
As for China and Japan, the recent meeting of Premier Chou
and Prime Minister Tanaka sets the stage for further changes in the
special ties of the latter country with the United States. Since
World War II, the Japanese have looked primarily to this nation not
only for security but also for the great portlon of the foreign trade
which supports their economic well-being. On the other side of the
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coin, Japan has followed very closely the U. S. lead in internat i onal
relations. Now, an immense economic dynamism has developed in Japan.
Japanese productive capacity ranks third in the world and Japanese
trade is flourishing on all continents. This economi c growth makes
possible greater independence in international policies; indeed, it
makes greater independence necessary.
The political settlement which has been achieved with China
foreshadows the end of the unequal and quasi-dependent relationship
with the United States. On the one hand this change is welcomed
.. both here and in Japan. On the other hand, anxieties over what
the future may hold ha~led to some mutual recrimination. It is
the responsibility of diplomacy and statecraft to hold in check
tendencies of this kind. On that score, T must say in all candor,
that there has been some slippage on the part of the Administration.
I can conceive of no greater tragedy for the Pac i fic region
than that the inevitable transition in the U. S. - Japanese rela-tionship
terminate in its disruption. To avoid such an outcome,
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it would be helpful to recognize frankly that Japan's great
econo~ic achievements in recent years have been pinching at
sensi tive political and commercial nerves in this country. Pre-
1
occupied for too long with Viet Nam, we have awakened to discover
that our industry is no longer able to compete in many fields with
the Japanese. While we have been wasting our substance, skills,
manpower and industrial creativity in Indochina, the Japanese have
been putting insignificant outlays into military purposes. Their
economic energies have been concentrated, instead, on peaceful
production and trade. It is not surprising, in the circumstances,
that for the last six years, the Un ~ted States has had a bilateral
trade deficit wi th Japan, which reached an all-time high of
$3.2 billion last year.
Japan's reestablishment of relations with China, in my
judgment, is in the interests of all concerned. The door will now
open still more widely to a Sino-Japanese trade which is already
large and growing. In so doi ng, it will lessen the pressure of
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Japanese competition in U. S. markets.
'
Furthermore, it may well •
stimulate the Soviet Union into a heightened economic interchange
with Japan, especially in connection with the Soviet Maritime
•
Provinces and Siberia.
These adjustments can go far to untangle the trade lines of
the Far Pacific which were distorted by ideological conflicts in
the aftermath of World War II. Moreover, they dovetail with the
clearing away of trade barriers between the United States and China
and the United States and the Soviet Union. Taken all together,
these shifts could lay a firm economic base for peaceful relation-ships
between Japan, China, the Soviet Union and the United States
in the Western Pacific. The question is can there also be found
i n a l l four countri es the poli t i cal wit and diplomatic wisdom to build
a quadripartite base of stability in that region?
Early steps will involve adjustments i n security relation-ships,
notably in the defense treaties between Japan and the United
States and the Soviet Union and China. These treaties were entered
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into in a different time and situation. Insofar as the Japanese -
U. S. relationship is concerned, it is likely that the U. S. nuclear
safeguards for Japan will remain significant for some .time. Outside
l
this umbrella, however, it seems to me that U. S. bases on Japanese
territory, which have already declined in importance, will have
lost additional significance as a result of the Chou Tanaka and ·
the Chou - Nixon communiques.
Present developments among the larger countries of Asia
have set in motion repercussions elsewhere. After two decades of
unrestrained invective, for example, the two Koreas are talking
amicably. Thailand has accepted a Chinese invitation to take its
table tennis team to Peking. The ping-pong players will .be accom-panied
. by government emissaries carrying not only paddles and
ping-pong balls, but, in all probability, briefs on Sino-Thai
international issues. It will be only a matter of time, I should
think, before relations are normalized between China and Thailand,
Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.
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In short, from one end of the Western Pacific to the other,
outmoded policies are on the way out. What still remains intact,
however, are this nation's military and other arrangements around
the rim of the People's Republic of China. The next step for this
Administration or its successor, it would seem, will involve an
examination of these arrangements, indeed all the tools--the
treaties and other measures--by which antiquated doctrines are
still being pursued in Asia. The cutting edge of these tools will
have to be reset so that they may be applied in follow-through on
the President's initiative and with relevance to the contemporary
realities of the Far East.
It would be well to bear in mind in this connection that
the United States is, and will continue to be, a Pacific power.
We should cease now to act as an Asian power as we have been trying
to do for the past quarter of a century. The fact is that we have
no vital--I stress the word vital--interest on the mainland of Asia
except to extricate ourselves from the quicksands of Indochina.
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To meet our vital Pacific interests--and, as distinct from those
in Asia, they are vital--does not require us to continue to maintain
hundreds of thousands of armed forces and over 100 major bases
throughout the Western Pacific at a cost of billions of dollars
annually. It does not compel us to give vast quantities of arms
and other wasteful aid to dubious governments. The deployment of
our military forces and our resources should be matched to contem-porary
needs and not to the myths of the past. It is time for
careful, in-depth studies of all of our non-nuclear security
commitments in Asia and it would be my hope that such studies will
be undertaken in the Senate and elsewhere during the .next ~ngress.
Over the hopeful developments in Asia, there still hangs
the cloud of Indochina. Our nation remains entrapped by its own
Southeast Asian policies. To be sure, fewer Americans than in the
past now die in Indochina each week and that is cause for gratitude.
That does not excuse us, however, from facing the fundamental issue.
What we must ask ourselves bluntly is why any American should die
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18
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in Indochina? Why is there, still, any American involvement in
a war which is now looked upon as a mistake by almost all Americans?
The continued involvement in Indochina works against the
long-range interests of this nation not only in Asia but throughout
the world and at home. It is debilitating our economy at the rate
of at least some $8 billion a year now, or about $40 out of the
pockets of every man, woman, and child in the nation. We are
building up public obligations which not only feed inflation but
which will carry well into the 21st Century. The involvement is
helping to destroy the lives of thousands of Indochinese every week
in a war which, ·less and less, draws distinctions between combatant
and non-combatant, "smart bombs" notwithstanding. Like a cancer,
the war eats away at the vi tality of our national life and the trust
of Americans in each other and in their government. It is feeding
on the nation's soul, stripping away the concern that has made
America, America--a decent concern for the life of all human beings
wherever they may be.
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j
The longer we continue in Indochina the more we place
ourselves at a disadvantage in tackling the real problems facing
· us in the Pacific. The waters of that ocean touch the shores of
the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, and China. We are all
Pacific nations. Our fates are interwoven in a complex of common
and divergent interests. It is going to tax us to the fullest to
deal with that complex in a way which serves the well-being of
this nation. We can ill afford to approach the new situation in
the Western Pacific with one foot in the trap of Indochina.
We have made a start--a good start. We have begun, belatedly,
to face up to the present and to look to the future." We have a
long way to go but the first step is the longest and the most
di fficult. We can continue with assurance along this path on which
we have entered in Asia, recognizing that it is but a sector of the
path of brotherhood, mutual understanding and equality for all men
everywhere. In the end, the goal is the same--peace, peace for
ourselves and our children and our children's children.
Mike Mansfield Papers, Series 21, Box 48, Folder 46, Mansfield Libary, University of Montana